NEW YORK (AP) — A man accused of running a secret Chinese spy outpost in New York City was convicted Wednesday of acting as an illegal foreign agent and destroying text messages from a Chinese government handler.
Lu Jianwang, 64, was acquitted of a related conspiracy charge in a case that pitted U.S. concerns about China’s crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents against the defense’s contention that prosecutors twisted a well-meaning Chinese American community leader’s bureaucratic misstep to put him in prison.
Lu spoke to supporters as he left Brooklyn federal court but declined to answer questions from reporters. His lawyer, John Carman, said federal prosecutors dressed up a mundane paperwork case with specious suggestions that Lu was involved in spying and intelligence gathering.
Lu, who also goes by Harry Lu, remains free on bail pending sentencing, which has not been scheduled.
According to federal prosecutors, Lu and a co-defendant, Chen Jinping, established the outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood in 2022 after Lu attended a ceremony in his native Fujian province where China’s Ministry of Public Security announced it was opening 30 such secret police stations around the world.
